


Four Things Johanna Didn't Know About Katniss (And One Thing Katniss Didn't Know About Herself)

by Lysippe



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-22
Updated: 2015-11-22
Packaged: 2018-05-02 21:20:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5264012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lysippe/pseuds/Lysippe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Seriously, though. Writing Johanna is hard for me. Writing Johanna through Katniss’ eyes is much easier, I think probably because we both adore her whereas the Johanna in my head is kind of self-loathing and more like me in my head and I don’t like writing that. But I wanted to do a companion piece to my “Five Things Katniss Didn’t Know About Johanna” fic (locatable somewhere in my fanfiction tag), and now I have so at least that’s off my back.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Four Things Johanna Didn't Know About Katniss (And One Thing Katniss Didn't Know About Herself)

**Author's Note:**

> Seriously, though. Writing Johanna is hard for me. Writing Johanna through Katniss’ eyes is much easier, I think probably because we both adore her whereas the Johanna in my head is kind of self-loathing and more like me in my head and I don’t like writing that. But I wanted to do a companion piece to my “Five Things Katniss Didn’t Know About Johanna” fic (locatable somewhere in my fanfiction tag), and now I have so at least that’s off my back.

**1.**

Katniss Everdeen had an annoyingly good work ethic. It was one of the many things that had made her unnervingly perfect when Johanna first met her, but she hadn’t realized just  _how_ annoyingly good it was until their first winter together. It wasn’t that Johanna was lazy or anything, but the first time it had snowed, Katniss was out of bed as soon as the sun came up, pulling on her jacket and gloves, and Johanna really just wanted to stay in their warm bed with her warm girlfriend and avoid the cold a little longer.

“ _What_  are you doing, brainless?” Johanna mumbled, her face half-buried in Katniss’ pillow.

“It snowed last night,” Katniss said, as though that explained why she was depriving her girlfriend of her continued presence in bed.

Johanna was unimpressed with Katniss’ explanation. “So? It’s winter. Snow happens.”

“ _So_ ,” Katniss continued patiently, “I need to shovel it before it gets compacted.”

“No, you don’t,” Johanna argued. “District 7 snow isn’t like District 12 snow, I’ve told you. It’s probably an inch at most and it’ll all be gone by mid-day anyway. Come back to bed and keep me warm. It’ll be a better use of your time.”

Katniss, however, wasn’t hearing any of it. Already fully dressed and heading out of the room, she turned around at the doorway. “Go back to sleep. I’ll join you when I’m done.”

“You’ll be all cold and you’ll make the bed cold,” Johanna said petulantly, clearly not buying into the idea of compromise.

“Well, if you wanted to be nice, you could, you know,  _help_  me,” Katniss raised an eyebrow.

“Let’s think about that. Do I want to be nice, or do I want to be warm?” Johanna asked, burrowing further into the covers in answer to her own question. “Go perform your exercise in futility, if you must,” she sighed dramatically.

“I think I will,” Katniss said, her smile belying the rolling of her eyes.

Sure enough, the snow was gone by mid-day. Johanna smirked and smugly said “I told you so,” no fewer than three times before Katniss finally managed to get her to shut up about it.

—-

**2.**

Katniss always cried after sex. Their first time, she tried to hide it, rolling over to face away from Johanna. But Johanna wasn’t an idiot and Katniss was pretty bad at hiding things from her anyway. 

“Hey, what’s wrong?” Johanna asked, trying for a bit more sensitivity than came naturally to her.

“Nothing,” came the mumbled reply from her girlfriend, still refusing to look at her.

Johanna, however, was not one to avoid her problems. Climbing deftly over her girlfriend, she lay down so that they were face to face, one hand gently keeping Katniss in place as she tried to roll away once more. It was then that she saw the tears silently making their way down Katniss’ face. “God, was I that bad? I mean, I know it’s been a while, but still,” she said, trying to mask the anxiety she felt with humor.

Katniss shook her head as best she good, eyes widening. “No, it was… you were great… amazing. Really. I don’t know why I’m crying. I’m sorry. You must think I’m so stupid.”

Johanna shrugged, but didn’t say anything, sensing that her girlfriend wasn’t quite finished talking yet.

“It’s just… I’ve never… you know. You were my first,” Katniss said quietly, her face turning scarlet as she forced herself to continue, determined to ramble her way to an adequate explanation. “I just didn’t realize… how it would be, with you. And I guess it hit me how much I need you in my life, and how you actually do love me, and it’s all just a bit much, I guess.”

“You’re not stupid.” It was the first thing that Johanna could think of to say, and while not a satisfactory response by any means, it was the best she could do for the time being. "Well, not for that."

“I  _feel_  stupid,” Katniss frowned, wiping the final remnants of tears from her eyes. “I feel like a stupid little kid, crying because I don’t know what else to do.”

“No,” Johanna said, the firmness in her voice surprising herself as much as Katniss. “It’s not stupid, and neither are you. And I don’t care if you cry every time we have sex, but don’t try to hide it from me. You can cry as much as you need to, and I’ll just hold you until you’re done, and then we can just have sex again. It’ll be great,” she said, smiling confidently.

Katniss rolled her eyes, but a soft laugh escaped her lips. “You’re ridiculous. Why are you being so patient with me?”

“Because that’s what you do when you love someone,” Johanna said, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world.

—-

**3.**

Over the years, Johanna came to realize that Katniss was far more observant than she gave her credit for. She always seemed to know the right thing to say or do to keep Johanna from going back to the familiar comforts of her old ways, to keep pushing her forward. She hadn’t thought that Katniss was self-aware enough to understand that she had pulled Johanna out of the darkest, most awful place she had ever been. But she had been wrong.

Johanna would never tell her, of course, just how much Katniss saved her, but it was okay, because Katniss knew and Johanna knew that Katniss knew. Their relationship, it seemed, was based around a lot of knowing but never saying, and apparently that worked for them.

Johanna, like many victors, had undergone a dramatic personality change after winning her games. She had masked everything with arrogant, abrasive confidence, making sure to keep everyone around her slightly off-balance, never letting anyone too close. It had been a crude, but effective, survival tactic. Until the Quell. Until she had been captured and tortured by the Capitol. Until she had lost all will to keep going.

In District 13, Johanna had felt like she couldn’t continue; like she didn’t want to even if she could because really, what was the point? Everything she did hurt. Everything made her feel small and weak and damaged beyond any hope of repair. 

And living with Katniss had been no different. She had managed to play off her roommate’s guilt successfully enough to steal her morphling, but watching Katniss thrive as she fell to pieces time and again was more gutting than anything. She had known, of course, deep down, that they were never going to send her to the Capitol with the others. She felt it in her bones, that she was too broken, too volatile and unpredictable and inconsistent, to ever be considered good enough to make the cut. But she had trained with the others anyway, determined that at least this way no one could accuse her of not trying.

Johanna had more or less come to terms with the person she was apparently going to be from then on when Katniss had showed up on her doorstep, unannounced and largely unwelcome, seeking refuge from her own demons. She hadn’t even realized it was happening at first, that Katniss was slowly, patiently pulling the person Johanna had once been from the wreckage of the shattered facade she had worn for too long. 

The first time Johanna really noticed the change in herself was when she realized that once, she would have balked at the idea of letting anyone help her with anything. But it seemed to be working, and all things considered their life together was a pretty pleasant one, so she decided to let it slide. She supposed that there were worse things in the world than needing a helping hand every now and then.

—-

**4.**

Johanna didn’t think she was  _that_  messy, but apparently Katniss disagreed. There was still plenty of room to move around, and it wasn’t like she had enough stuff to really make a mess anyway, but Katniss seemed hell-bent that every possession Johanna owned should either be on her person or in its proper place at all times, without exception, and it was driving Johanna crazy.

“I just don’t understand what’s so bad about keeping my coat on the couch,” she argued. “Why do I need to keep it in the closet? I’m never going to use it in our room. I’m going to use it to go outside, and the living room is closer to the door.”

“Johanna, there is a closet  _right by the front door_ , where you can hang your coat,” Katniss sighed, running a hand through her hair in frustration. 

They had had this argument before, many times, and it always ended the same way. Johanna would claim that hanging her coat up was a waste of time, and Katniss would argue that keeping things moderately clean was never a waste of time. In the end, Johanna would hang up her coat, grumbling about it for the next hour until Katniss eventually managed to distract her, and the next time Johanna left the house, the coat would go right back to the couch. Johanna didn’t know why Katniss bothered. She wasn’t a neat person by nature, and that was never going to change.

“I am trying, you know,” Johanna said. And she was. She may have thought that some of her girlfriend’s complaints were irrational-bordering-on-lunacy, but she had paid attention to Katniss’ more sound ideas and adjusted her habits accordingly. “I got a laundry basket when you said you didn’t like me leaving my clothes on the floor.”

“If you had kept them in a pile it wouldn’t have been so bad, but they were scattered all over the house!” Katniss defended.

“And I do the dishes.”

“Usually.”

“And I even built that rack for my axes after you complained about me leaving them lying around.”

“I know you’re trying,” Katniss’ expression softened. “And I appreciate it.”

“Good,” Johanna said triumphantly. “Because I like my coat on the couch, and I want it to stay there.” Katniss sighed, but Johanna could see that she had won, at least for now.

“You are impossible, you know that?”

“I do. But you love me anyway,” Johanna smiled.

Rolling her eyes, Katniss returned the smile. “You know what, I think I do.”

—-

** 5.  **

Katniss tries to hide it, but Johanna knows she misses District 12. She understands why Katniss needed to leave, with every corner corner haunted not just by her sister but the ghosts of everyone she grew up with, of the love she turned away from, the choices she made and the consequences they had. District 12 is a place that will forever be associated with sadness in Katniss’ mind, but that doesn’t make her miss it any less. 

District 7 is different enough from District 12 for Katniss to be able to live there, but still similar enough to cause her pain. Johanna sees it in the way she reacts to the little things in their lives - how the trees are different and stay green even in the dead of winter and people come home from work smelling of pine instead of coal. She doesn’t think Katniss even realizes how much she truly misses District 12, but Johanna sees it all the same. District 12 will always be her home, and even if she can’t go back, even if she has committed to making a life with Johanna here, what is left of her friends and family are there. Here, she only has Johanna. 

Johanna tried to bring it up with her once, tried to suggest that maybe they go back for a visit, at least, to see how everyone is doing. Katniss had looked so stricken by the idea that Johanna never brought it up again. But even though Katniss doesn’t acknowledge it, Johanna knows that they can’t stay in Seven forever. This is Johanna’s home, not Katniss’. That makes their entire life here fundamentally unbalanced, and a home cannot be built on a shaky foundation. 


End file.
